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| Playful cape fur seals |
| 1 July 2011, 09:40 |
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Fiona Ayerst, one of SA's best known underwater photographers, has been published in many SA and international magazines and books (including DiveSite magazine of course!). Fiona lives with her family on the garden route, and dives the area as often as she can.
Steve Benjamin from Animal Ocean took us across to play with the cape fur seals at Partridge point after we had finished a very cold dive with Sevengill Cow Sharks at Millers point. Although my body felt like a block of ice from the previous dive I was so glad that I got into the water again. The seals were frolicking playfully around us and the water was pretty clean. The seals love to approach divers with a wistful yet inquisitvie expression and then veer off suddenly at the last moment – fangs bared.
One or two of them decided a really fun game was to nibble Ryan on the top of his head and then dart quickly away before he could react. I was so relieved to have a big bubble of air inside my hoodie so that when they did this to me I couldn’t feel anything.
I really enjoyed my short time with the seals and wish that the water had been just that little bit warmer so that I could have stayed longer. I will go back- soon I hope !
See more at http://fionaayerst.wordpress.com
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| A day at sea off PE |
| 18 June 2011, 10:01 |
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Fiona Ayerst, one of SA's best known underwater photographers, has been published in many SA and international magazines and books (including DiveSite magazine of course!). Fiona lives with her family on the garden route, and dives the area as often as she can.
On 4 June 2011 Ryan and I spent the day out on the big blue ocean with Louis van Aardt of Pro-dive (Walmer ,PE ,South Africa (041) 5811144). It’s our fave place on earth to be (on the ocean that is) and what a peaceful, sunny and perfect day it was. We got some great action out int he big blue being visited by two interested Mako sharks looking for a little snack. Unfortunately they didn’t hang around for too long but I did manage to get enough time to snap off a couple of shots. They also whetted our appetites for more and I am hoping that Ryan will want to try and find them off the Mossel Bay coastline where we live – as I would love to visit them often. What incredible looking sharks- my new favourite! Move over Bull sharks.
Mako magic
After a lovely peaceful day on the ocean we headed back to shore and on the way in were treated to an incredible spectacle- a melange of 10000s of animals feeding on a ball or two of sardines. Yes, it’s the beginning of the annual Sardine Run that travels up our coastline. It looks like this year ( 2011 ) may be a good one- if this action is anything to go by. We had 1000′s of common dolphins;9 brydes whales, 100′s of gannets, seals, penguins and copper sharks deeper down.
Sardine run at sunset
Unfortunately the sunset had begun and so we only had about 15 minutes to enjoy the spectacle. It was one of those 15 minute time-spans that you want to remember forever. Unfortunately it was too dark and brief for me to get any photos but we did manage to capture some of it on video and I will post a couple of images from the video to show just how close Ryan got to a Brydes whale, that almost swallowed him as it chased sardines…
Peeking Brydes
See more at http://fionaayerst.wordpress.com
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